Cont: The Trump Presidency VIII

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The Don said:
A top 40

https://www.thoughtco.com/dumbest-bush-quotes-of-all-time-2734076

Admittedly not as long as President Trump's but then again Dubya didn't speak for hours at a time unscripted.
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Those are generally poorly thought out but one can generally guess at what the intent is.

That isn't the case with some of Trump's statements or tweets. The "covfefe" tweet was the best example - it wasn't problematic because of covfefe, although it looks as though he started thinking of "coverage" and ended up thinking about coffee. The problem was that it finished in mid sentence. With no continuation later on in case he'd just pressed send too early.

However I do agree that Trump probably did pass the medical to detect gross dementia. But not necessarily cognitive decline before that - although he certainly seemed far more fluent twenty years ago.
 
jimbob said:
But not necessarily cognitive decline before that - although he certainly seemed far more fluent twenty years ago.
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He sounded pretty damn reasonable in 2000. Disowned support from David Duke, who he later claimed to know nothing about. There are multiple clips comparing what he said then to what he says now.

If that Trump were still hiding somewhere inside the mess we see today, I would have some hope for this presidency. If forced to deal with a Democratic Congress, he could easily end up helping the cause of universal health care, for example. He might have a more reasonable stance on immigration. But he has thrown his lot in among some yes, *deplorable* supporters, and this is who he is now.

Not that I was ever a fan, but he has made some statements that reveal another side to him. However that doesn't play with his current base, and I don't think he can give up the adulation he gets from current supporters.
 
The Don said:
If you think I'm a supporter of President Trump then it has.
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I don't know. That said, I think your post is wrong. Trump is almost or is incoherent. He rambles constantly. W sometimes bumpled his way through, but he usually tied sentences together. I used to often laugh at his stumbling, but with Trump, I'm left going 'huh? What does that have to do with his previous line? '
 
The Don said:
If you think I'm a supporter of President Trump then it has.
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Yeah, I never got that vibe. In 2016 you were cautioning people not to write him off, which in retrospect was a sound position. The belief that he couldn't win possibly helped depress Democratic turnout at the polls. HuffPo was giving the odds against him winning as 99:1, pretty irresponsible IMO. I made sure I voted, though the state went pretty solidly red. With higher turnout, it might have flipped to blue. Not sure about that, but it was at least mathematically possible.

ETA: I think it's a hell of a reach to compare Trump's level of incoherence to Bush's.
 
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I think I understand where The Don is comig from. When i *read* Trump's oration, it sure looks like a confused transcript. However, when i listen to it, it takes on the character of an everday bloke pontificating with his friends. There seems to be a certain cadence to his repetitions and asides that do not transcribe well. Now whether this is by design, or reduced cognitive ability, that is beyond my pay grade.
 
gregthehammer said:
I think I understand where The Don is comig from. When i *read* Trump's oration, it sure looks like a confused transcript. However, when i listen to it, it takes on the character of an everday bloke pontificating with his friends. There seems to be a certain cadence to his repetitions and asides that do not transcribe well. Now whether this is by design, or reduced cognitive ability, that is beyond my pay grade.
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My immediate response is: cognitive decline, of course.

And yet ... "he knows what he's doing" might be a more realistic response. He figured out what appealed to relatively uneducated white voters, and is giving them what they want.
 
Minoosh said:
My immediate response is: cognitive decline, of course.

And yet ... "he knows what he's doing" might be a more realistic response. He figured out what appealed to relatively uneducated white voters, and is giving them what they want.
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He knows that he can get away with being himself - with just freely associating ideas - at his rallies and attendees will eat it up. As long as some themes recur - us/them thinking, dogs whistles (or more) to racism, etc. - he can just go with the flow, do a stream of consciousness, indulge himself, and it will work. Because it has worked.

It must be fun. Torture for the rest of us, but it must be fun for him.
 
Paul2 said:
He knows that he can get away with being himself - with just freely associating ideas - at his rallies and attendees will eat it up. As long as some themes recur - us/them thinking, dogs whistles (or more) to racism, etc. - he can just go with the flow, do a stream of consciousness, indulge himself, and it will work. Because it has worked.

It must be fun. Torture for the rest of us, but it must be fun for him.
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When you watch a stage hypnotist, it's hard not to think, "That's gotta be fake - who would act like a chicken just because someone told them to?!" And yet some of them do. I get the same incredulous feeling about Trumpers and yet there they are. Maybe "Trumpnosis" is a pretty good theory after all:

 
WilliamSeger said:
When you watch a stage hypnotist, it's hard not to think, "That's gotta be fake - who would act like a chicken just because someone told them to?!" And yet some of them do. I get the same incredulous feeling about Trumpers and yet there they are. Maybe "Trumpnosis" is a pretty good theory after all:

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Or a Pentecostal church. I've been to just about every well known Christian denomination church and the only place I saw people writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues is in a Pentecostal church.

If you create an environment where it is safe or even expected to do crazy stuff, with a little encouragement they will.
 
I started to post this in the family immigration thread, but it didn't really fit there.

The Army has begun discharging immigrant recruits.

Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.

Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they'd been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.
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Minoosh said:
ETA: I think it's a hell of a reach to compare Trump's level of incoherence to Bush's.
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Fair enough.

IMO Trump is often inarticulate and cannot maintain focus on what he's saying when he's up in front of his rallies but that's not necessarily a sign of mental impairment. He's famous for not preparing ahead of time and for not using a teleprompter so IMO it's hardly surprising that he gets sidetracked when speaking to the mob - not least because his primary objective isn't to impart a clear message but to receive the cheers and adulation of the crowd. Paul2 covers it well.

His unwillingness to prepare, his impulsiveness, his apparent need to keep flitting from one thing to another and his continual need to switch positions to get the most praise is exactly why he's a terrible and very dangerous President. A lazy idiot would be fine, he wouldn't do anything and so nothing would have to be undone. Someone who had a clear, fixed, agenda no matter how abhorrent wouldn't be quite as bad because at least you know that they have principles and you can counter them.

OTOH trying to combat President Trump is like punching fog. You have no idea what his number 1 priority is going to be today and if he thinks his position is unpopular, he will reverse it without batting an eyelid. The usual ways of dealing with someone don't work because he has no principles beyond getting more adulation and he's unshameable.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I'll take your word for it you don't support Trump. Not sure then why you defend his mindless rambling.
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I'm not defending his rambling, I'm suggesting that using it to try and demonstrate that he is mentally unfit to be President is pointless, and in my own opinion inaccurate. In that, I mean that I think is a terrible President for many reasons but he is not mentally disqualified in my inexpert opinion.
 
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